Shoulder Fluff

If there's one thing you can say about the Imperial Guard, it's that they're organised. Whether expertly dispatching troops into a futile pointless meat grinder in an orderly fashion, or fastidiously ordering tens of thousands of 'bolts' for troops to hold up their trousers with because of a clerk's poor handwriting, the Imperial Guard have got organisation sorted.

The fluff in the Codex and Rulebook doesn't really go into any great depth, and having a little historical interest, it's one of my favourite parts to add to my background. Today, a little insignia / ranks. A lot of people tend to just use the stuff off Halo or the modern USMC, so I tried to come up with something original, yet 'rooted' in history. Results are below.

For those of you who are interested, they are 'inspired' by East German shoulder boards with a little rejigging and the addition of a squared-off fabric backer. The bottom one is an example of a 'full dress' epaulette, so this is what the 'Mordians' would be wearing in 2nd Battalion. This was all done in MS Paint over the course of a day so it's not hard to put them together at all. The ranks that these correspond to haven't been fully worked out, but might go something like this (taken from the Palladian Structure and Strength chapter - will be published in full in due course):

5.Grades of Field Officer. The grades of the field officers in the Palladian Guard are as follows:-

Comments

Excellent stuff, it's attention to detail like this that really gives an army character and needn't bog things down. Where I tend to focus on more cultural, pseudo-medieval stuff that suits Marines, this is the bread-and-butter of the Guard, especially a very well organised outfit such as the Palladians